Dan Szymborski released his park factors for 2008, helping us put performances in context for this past season. Check it out:
R H 2B HR BB K Memphis 0.99 0.97 0.95 0.99 1.00 1.03 Springfield 1.10 1.01 1.05 1.32 1.03 1.06 Palm Beach 0.93 0.98 1.00 0.82 0.96 1.00 Quad Cities 0.96 0.98 0.97 0.99 0.98 0.98 Batavia 1.04 0.99 1.10 0.92 0.98 0.99
Holy cow! Is it time to break out the humidor at Hammons Field? At the the other extreme, you have Roger Dean. This is important to remember when a player makes a jump from Palm Beach to Springfield, not only is it moving up to face more difficult competition, it’s like moving from Petco Park to Coors Field. This helps to explain the struggles that Tyler Herron and Adam Ottavino experienced in AA, as well as Daryl Jones‘ power spike when he moved up.
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Anybody, know what makes springfield so hitter friendly? The dimensions are fair, the elevation isn’t to noteworthy. I don’t have any other minor league stadium to compare it to, but i don’t notice any cheap homeruns. I go to around 10 games a year there.
How much influence/responsibility does the Cards LLC have in managing the stadiums in PB and Springfield? Is making them more even something that the big club can dictate, or are they bound to leases with the cities like a lot of other parks?
Just an interesting thing to think about, when you figure the Cards appear headed toward owning all of their affiliates.
Maybe I don’t totally understand how this works but since Palm Beach and Jupiter are actually the same facility (I believe) used by different teams in the same league, how can their park factors be different?
Maybe Springfield is such a hitter friendly park because the Cardinals are pitching there?
I jest.
It’s probably worth noting that these numbers only compare teams to the other teams in that specific league.
CC, there is a lot of variability or inaccuracy in park factors, so you’ll see different results for different teams playing in the same stadium.
I’m surprised that Batavia isn’t more extreme — IIRC, in past years the numbers favored pitchers even more. But according to BA there was more talent in the NY-P than usual, and certainly the Cards had a better team there than we typically do.
So maybe we just had better hitters there, and that brought the park factor up closer to normal.
There are a lot of things that can cause a difference in the same stadium. You have simple error from things such as the roster mixes not being the same on the home/road and the like, and just random dumb luck. The factors are close enough and the expected error large enough that those park factors for Jupiter and Palm Beach are essentially the same.
There are also real things that *can* be different, such as weather conditions, though I would think, with absolutely nothing to back me up, that Florida would have smaller swings in weather than some other places.
If you look at the 3 yr data for PB and Jupiter they are almost the same, one stat is off by 3, one by 2 and the rest are either even or off by 1. I think the variation in the 2008 data is just he inherent inaccuracies of park factors.
Also, going further into the 3yr data vs 1yr data how did Springfield’s HR rate jump .10 points? Other then that they are near their averages:
2006-2008 1.06 1.01 1.06 1.22 1.00 1.04
2008 only 1.10 1.01 1.05 1.32 1.03 1.06
I think that the humidity and heat in Jupiter can be a huge factor and different for each individual, for or against you. Humidity affects how the ball moves or doesn’t move or sink and the grass is even different. Lots of factors.
A Florida born player (any position) may feel more comfortable in FL summer weather where an outsider doesn’t do well due to humidity and heat. I have a friend whose son plays for another team and raised in FL, sent to AA in the cold and couldn’t hit, sent him back to Florida and he performed like a maniac.
Thanks for your input Dan. I’ve been needing to get to these reader questions but have been pretty consumed with other stuff at the moment, so I appreciate you stopping by and explaining.